With my financial woes coming to an end at the start of November, the search for a full time office hours job continuing, Youtube's ad-pochalypse, the severe lack of viewership on both Twitch and Youtube as well as my constant woes of my 8 year old PC constantly dying on me, I have decided to take a hiatus until the end of the year. Let me explain point for point. Warning! TL;DR imminent!

My financial woes coming to an end:Due to an accumulated debt of over €7000, I had to give up control of my bank account, In August of 2015, to an outsider. A guardian assigned by the Dutch Court, who would arrange with the debt collectors that I would be slowly paying off my debts on a monthly basis through an automated system. With this I would get a weekly allowance of €50 with which I was to buy my groceries. And I had to ask for money if I needed to buy clothes or if my family decided to drag me along on a family trip.I had some influence on how much I would pay off, occasionally, when I noticed I had saved up a nice portion of money, I requested a larger portion to be paid off from time to time. However, the downside of this was that my living standards took a dive as I focused all my excess money into paying off my debts. This however meant that certain things in my apartment that needed replacement, such as my now 8 year old PC which never got any upgrades, could not happen.In March and April of 2017 I was able to pay off the last remaining €1800 and from that moment I was completely debt free I was allowed to send a request to the Court to terminate the cooperation between me and my financial guardian right there and then, but I decided against it, because I realized there was just too much I wanted to do and too much that needed to get done in terms of improving my living standards and apartment. I was afraid that I would find myself in a spending spree and thus on a fast track back into debts if I took control of my finances too quickly, so I decided to keep my Financial guardian for a few more months.In August 2017 I finally sent the letter to the Court requesting that they grant me to retake control of my finances and terminate the contract I have with the Financial Guardian, which they approved of Mid-October 2017.On November 1st 2017 my Financial Guardian will start the process of reverting control of my bank accounts back to me. I expect this to take about a week or so.

Search for a full time, office hour job:After an unemployment period of 1,5 years, in July 2015 I started a job that forced me to work during the afternoon into late evening, occasionally even passing midnight.During my period of unemployment I started streaming on Twitch and recording gameplay videos for Youtube of Mental Omega and eventually Rise of the Reds. Back then I was streaming every single day starting at 8 PM CET.While doing so I was making some money through donations and ad revenue on youtube, but nothing to write home about. If I was able to order Chinese once per month from the youtube ad revenue I was happy.However, due to this new job and its times, I decided that working was way more financially beneficial for me and thus I only streamed on Sundays, if my family or friends didn't have other plans. Eventually I was able to manipulate a few parties to make it more beneficial for me to work 4 nights, so that I could stream on Friday evenings too.In February 2017 I found myself having a new job, but unfortunately it was similar worktimes, so once again I couldn't stream much.BUT in June 2017 I got a brief taste of life working full time during office hours and the possibility to do more regular streams in the evening, like before (not that I took much advantage of it)Sadly this job wasn't what I expected, I got fired and was welcomed back at the previous jobsite, once again part time, once again evenings.So now I'm once again on the lookout for a job that fulfills 3 criteria: [i]Full time, during office hours only and logistical[/] (as I have a college degree in logistics and warehousing)I came really close to finding something new, but I was overqualified. so the search continues.

Youtube ad pocalypse and Twitch / youtube viewership and 8 year old PC woes:I am fairly sure that all of you that do have access to Youtube are aware what this "ad apocalypse" is, but for those that don't know, is that Youtube's automated system now deems certain topics to be "not suitable for most advertisers" meaning that content creators, such as myself, can't make money on ad revenue on those videos. Youtube being Youtube remains incredibly vague on why videos are flagged as such, so there is no real way to improve.Some times it's a whole slew of videos that get flagged, but some times just complete random videos. And it doesn't only affect new videos, but also older ones.This also seems to affect the viewership of the videos on Youtube. When videos are flagged, it seems that Youtube doesn't want to promote them.

But the whole Youtube debacle isn't the only reason why my videos don't get many views. And this transcends Youtube and goes over into Twitch:The divided communities of C&C Modding. RotR fans seem to only want to watch RotR related content. MO fans seem to only want to watch MO related content. Same with OpenRA, same with Contra.However when I stream / record something that isn't related to RTS at all, it seems that no one is interested and the amount of viewers I get for a stream or a video can be counted on 2 hands. and this SEVERELY DEMOTIVATES ME as it seems I can never satisfy everyone.Back in 2015 when I was streaming every day I had 1 day dedicated to MO, 1 day dedicated to RotR and 1 day that I wanted (but barely ever succeeded) for multiplayer games (like Cards against humanity or Burnout paradise) The rest of the week was dedicated to a specific game until I was done with it and ready to move on to another game (think of Overlord, RTS Campaigns, LA Noire) Once a have a job that meets my demands, I want to go back to something similar to this, but if no one is going to watch, I feel I'm only wasting my time. And when I get that feeling, I just want to throw in the towel.

Adding the fact that the PC I'm currently using, is 8 years old, and never has been upgraded (due to the time before the unemployment it wasn't needed, and during the period of paying off my debt I couldn't afford to / invest in upgrading) it's slowly but consistently dying on me, during the times I need it most: recording and streaming. frustrating and DEMOTIVATING ME EVEN MORE!

THERE IS GOOD NEWS THO!!!Now that my financial woes are coming to and end, I am planning to invest in getting a completely new PC, built from scratch by my uncle. I plan to hit him up in the second week of December and seeing if it's possible to have a new PC before the end of 2017This does, however, mean that with my current dying PC, I don't want to chance to stream only to see my PC crash, software not working properly, or seeing no one in chat.Also over time in 2018 I want to improve my living quality by replacing some furniture, adding some curtains in my living room and eventually getting my dream set up for my PC with a proper desk, 2 monitors and a proper green screen with proper lighting and move my "work station" away from my TV / Dinner Table set up.

And that is why I'm taking a hiatus until I have my new PC.I'm hoping that by that time I also can bring some good news in regards of a new job.

A few weeks ago I posted a video here where I explained why there was a severe lack of RotR / Contra content on the channel.What I was hoping for was this video would spark a whole bunch of replays being sent in, which sadly didn't happen. With no replays being sent in, there's nothing to cast. With nothing to cast, there's no videos being made.

At this moment in time, I can say that it is no longer of any use to send in any replays what so ever!!!

I am fully aware that with RotR, there is a community patch out, which I currently do not have. Same with Contra 009 Beta 2, having a test branch which has access to ContraVPN (afaik)

Once I have my new PC I will make sure to have both of these versions, as well as the publicly available versions and I hope that starting 2018, I see A LOT of replays being sent in!!!

Well, some great news in regards of of a new job.Today, October 31st 2017, at 3 PM I had a job interview, arranged by a job agency. Around 4: 10 PM I was home, put my pizza in the oven as I had to be ready at 5 PM to leave for work, but around 4:15 PM I received a call from that job agency, with the news that I WAS HIRED!!!

This means that starting Monday November 6th 2017, I will be working Full time, during office hours for around €11 per hour gross, compared to the 20-ish hours in the evening for €9,25 per hour gross plus evening shift compensation (it's like 20% bonus)

This means that at the end of the road, I have a lot more money at my disposal, and with me having full control of my bank accounts some time in November, ending the deal with my financial guardian, and having paid off my debt already at the end of April 2017, I'd say that the year of 2017 was a massive success!!!

Add to that the Paris Trip, which was the first non-family related trip I took since May 2014 and now this new job, and the possibility of a new C in December (I'll keep you all posted) the year 2017 almost could not be any better

While I will still be recording an end of the year vlog, if I get a new PC before christmass I might actually come back from my hiatus a little earlier. No promisses tho

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After having sorted out everything with the bank, got myself a new job AND bought a complete new PC, I can say the hiatus is pretty much over.Just give me some time to set up my stuff and I'll be seeing you on my channel on Twitch on January 8th 2018 @ 19:00 GMT for which ever game I decide to stream!

(note: on days leading up to the 8th, I'll run a few test streams for different games / mods, so keep your eyes on my channel)